I would like to thank 6Mois for forwarding on your Open Letter, thereby offering

me the opportunity to respond.

First of all, it is with great sorrow that I read of the suffering caused to you and
those close to you To hear my work has contributed to any kind of grievance is
really disappointing.
Your letter pertains to a firm accusation that I have copied your photos and
suggests your intent in writing this open letter is to let people know the truth.
Whilst I acknowledge the similarities in the photos you have found via online
sources and the two artist statements on Lensculture, I can categorically state
that I have not intentionally copied any of your work, or that of anyone else.

Below is a more detailed response to your letter:

Over the last 12 months I have indeed reached out to you and your family in an
effort to create a connection. I did this for a number of reasons, most notably
because I admire your work and because I was hoping for friendship with
someone who had similar values and visions in their desires for bringing up
children. We have been home schooling our children now for 5 years, living
without TV, etc, for just as long. It is not often I come across others with similar
approaches in parenting, especially in other countries so it was with a genuine
comradeship that I reached out. It is a shame this was not appreciated for what it
genuinely was as this Open Letter is the very first correspondence I have
received in return.
Our children are fortunate enough to lead similar lifestyles, and we both choose
to celebrate this with our photography. With a passion for a photojournalistic
style of photography that evolved from early 2000. I have been capturing shots
of my children for a few years now (long before I joined Facebook 2 years ago).
We live on a farm near the beach, with a pond and a river, with animals and their
remains, and with children to whom this sort of environment presents all sorts of
opportunities to play and explore. It is inevitable that the universal language of
nature, mud, water, (etc) will exist in our pictures, we afford our children
freedoms in their worlds to play, to be, to express themselves freely. It is a
shame that we cannot afford ourselves the same freedoms.
The five images are remarkably similar. Did I copy them no. In fact three of
your images you have shared .. I did not even know existed until this letter .
I have thousands of images of my children living within their environment here,
hundreds of which I have shared on facebook , that you have found five that are
similar is not surprising given the similarities in our lifestyles..
The reality is we live on a farm, my kids get up to a LOT of stuff, and I am there
with my camera.

That you are flooded with and have my images forced upon you .. is not
something I understand .. I have recently entered a few competition.. yes .. as a
beginner I did not expect to gain recognition in these as I have , but I dont see
this as something I need to excuse myself for ..as I have already stated, my
images went viral a few months ago this was unexpected , unprovoked and
frankly not a totally enjoyable experience for me. A very few asked for
permission and an interview but with the rest .. I was nave and website ,
companies etc .. were taking what they wanted words and pictures from
everywhere I had ever posted them .. it was a steep and unpleasant learning
experience for me but again , not one I feel I should be held accountable for,
or defend. None of this was engineered by me. This just happened to me.
Over this time I received a large amount of correspondence from a variety of
people, some complimentary, others very scathing, a lot questioned our
unschooling approach and general lifestyle.. Others talked about the
photography. Amongst these messages were a few that did refer to my images
being similar to both yours and those of Sally Mann. For me this was not
wonderful to hear, and I started to worry that they were indeed similar. So I
asked the advice of some highly respected photographers that I am so fortunate
to be friends with, and I asked them to be frank and honest with these comments
and what they saw, to which they all replied no that my pictures and style
whilst clearly similar in regards to being black and white and derived from similar
social context (not at all surprising given our somewhat similar lifestyles) still
possessed numerous differences in photographic approach, and advised that I
keep doing things my way , and to ignore the few who could not seem to see the
difference. Needless to say this was very reassuring for me.
That you say I do not state you as an inspiration or influence in interviews is an
interesting observation. I am someone who has always been an information
seeker and gatherer. I seek inspiration from a huge range of avenues, books,
movies, life experiences, and yes artists as well. I have had the wonderful
pleasure of being introduced to a wide range of artists , photographers and
otherwise, and I have slowly been building up a collection of books that I will
continue to ponder for years to come. My inspirations come from so many. Alain,
I love the images you create. Are your images an inspiration to me? Yes, as are
those of so many others. But have I ever sought directly to copy your work? No,
no and no. I am an honest person, Alain, and really not that complicated. My love
for our family is the biggest thing in my life and is where my pictures come from.
Your accusation is against everything I believe in and believe myself to be.
You mention I am a commercial photographer and thus a mastery at
photography, just to let you know I am neither, I set up a website, yes, the
clients you see on there are family and friends. I have yet to make any real
progress with the idea of creating a working sustainable photography business, it
was something I set up with intentions, but one that hasnt really gone
anywhere.

I am no master of photography, I am a hobbyist, not an acclaimed artist and

gallerist such as yourself, for more than any other reason I do it for the love of it.
I have no formal education in photography, although I have enjoyed participating
in a number of valuable short courses in recent years.
I am so sorry you feel the way you do about my pictures, but I do not understand
why you chose not to come to me personally to discuss this, especially as I have
reached out to you on several occasions, but instead you chose not to respond
and write a public letter to a publication to express your thoughts. Where I come
from we choose to communicate with each other personally, and look to reach
agreements and resolve grievances this way. I find your approach very
interesting Alain, and frankly a real shame. It would have been so easy for you to
just tell me what you were concerned about. Why didnt you do this? I truly do
not understand.

To look at the images more specifically:

The image with the leaves as ears - The image of yours is not one I have seen
before. My daughter learnt this trick from her older cousin just a couple of weeks
before this picture was taken. We were on holiday and we dont have leaves like
that where we lived , then on a trip to nearby river she found some of these
leaves , and picked them and said Mama , I am a bunny and scrunched her
nose up like a rabbit , she was so excited , and I photographed that. It is not a
great photo , but one that still holds meaning to me, because I can still
remember her joy at finding those leaves that made her magically become a
bunny, and I will not for a second have anyone take that magical memory away
from me with accusations of intentional plagiarism.
The image with the wee chicken - Alain , once again I did not know this picture of
your child with the chicken on the bed even existed. As I have said , we live on a
farm, we have chickens that hatch every year, often quite a few hatch within a
year. My girls love these little things, sometimes too much, they play with them
and mother them and get far too close with them as little girls do. This day they
brought this little one inside, they were worried about it, and thought it was sick
so they chose to bring it inside and watch it (rather intently) they spent hours
watching this little thing play and then they cuddled it close to keep it warm and
sleep and then feed it and watched it play again it was so beautiful and
nurturing. I photographed that. I have a whole series of images on file that can
speak to that.
The image of my kids and the raft in our pond - This is a not actually a used
tractor tyre as you say, it is a plastic half mussel buoy, we live very close to
mussel farms in our area , and the kids were lucky enough to find one, which
they learnt they could sit in and paddle across to the island in the middle of our
pond they have been doing this since we moved here 5 years ago, they can
only do this in the winter , as the pond dries up in the summer , so it is with great
excitement that they sit in this and tentatively balance as they attempt the

crossing , it is easy to tip this boat of theirs but always to be avoided due to the
eels and cold grimy water , it brings much squeals of delight and a whole lot of
stories and laughter to them.. Wonderful adventures and joy I want to record for
them and me. I took a lot of images down the pond during the winters.. this was
one I liked , I loved the way they were helping each other to get the boat back
when my daughter was struggling to row it again it is a poignant memory for
me, and one that I will hold onto, and that I hope they will cherish, without any
shame or concern about what others think. I would be happy to send you a file of
the scores of other images I have made there so you can see that I am not
inventing this. Do you really think I would arrange a pond and a boat just to copy
your picture?
The images of the wheel barrow yes remarkably similar. Alain, we live on a
farm, we have a wheelbarrow, and just as your children love to ride and play in it,
as do ours, and our neighbours who also own one , and our friends children who
also live on farms.. they have photos too, our children are not unique in this.
Wheelbarrows are fun and I take pictures and celebrate the fact that my children
can still take so much joy from simple piece of equipment, and I celebrate that
here are others in the world that also do .. I have many tens of pictures of my
kids having fun with our wheel barrow, in many many ways that you have
found a couple that are similar to yours is no coincidence. Again, I am more than
happy to send those pictures too, so that you can see once again I was not
making pictures to imitate yours.
Interestingly the one with them pushing another - it is one I took for an online
course I was doing, the assignment was to learn and practise the technique of
panning which is precisely how this image came about. I can send you all those
pictures too if you like?

Alain, I have never , will never , and have no desire to copy yours or anyone
elses work. I do not feel I need other peoples work to make my own work
strong.
I have no doubt there will be many similar images from all kinds of artist out
there in the internet world, but I wish only that people can continue to make their
art, create pictures, make memories and share and celebrate this wonderful
freedom and joy that we are afforded to do this without fear of accusation or
shame.

That being said I will happily remove any images from facebook, website, etc, as
it was, and never has been my intention to upset anyone with my images, they
are firstly and foremost memories for me and my children. I would have been
more than happy to do this at your request anytime.
My artist statement - The sentence that you point out is remarkably similar.

You might note that while that one sentence is indeed very similar the remaining
few paragraphs are without resemblances at all. I was lucky enough to have help
from a wonderful writer , I knew what I wanted to say , but was struggling with
the words to do it with , as part of a course I was doing I received some
wonderful help with the statement , and will be forever grateful for her
generosity and help , as it is a statement that reflects well what I feel about my
images, and I love it as it is.
Having said that, it was never my intention to aggrieve anyone with my words,
and if this is the effect it has had with you then I will happily omit that sentence,
no problem. You just needed to ask.
About our very similar post-production and black and white processing of the
pictures that you mention - Alain, I I do not see it. I am no expert but other than
the fact that we both choose to process our images in black and white, as do
many, many others, I feel that our interpretations of this black and white medium
are quite different. Indeed, mine tending to be much darker, and with
significantly more contrast, and without the tone you apply to yours.
You also mention confusing the audience I do not believe the audience is
confused, and I feel that maybe we should give the audience a little more credit.
Viewers of art come from all over , people like what resonates with them , and I
do not feel they will have any trouble what so ever recognising who the artists
are , what they like and why.
Writing is not the thing that I am best at in the world so this has taken me a long
time. I have neglected my children and my husband to reply to you as honestly
as I know how to. I hope you understand that I mean well with everything I have
written here but that also I would like you to reply to my question. Why did you
feel it was necessary to do this the way you did? You could have always simply
talked to me or written me or responded to my attempts to talk to you. We even
have mutual friends that I am sure would have helped us communicate. You are
a world-famous photographer with books and galleries and well deserved fame. I
am a mother here in New Zealand whose work is just beginning to be known.
Your pictures are so wonderful, so strong and true and original with your letter
- it feels so strange to me that you feel like you have to defend them against my
work which was never intended to hurt yours. Your wonderful pictures defend
themselves just by being.
As I have said, it was never my intention to upset you or anyone else with my
words or images. If this is the effect it has had with you then I would have
happily removed images or words at your request anytime, you only needed to
ask. Alain it is a real shame we couldnt just talk about all this.
My work has only ever been shared for positive reasons and to hear that it has
been received in such an unfortunate way is certainly disappointing, but I must
be very clear I stand 100% behind the integrity of my body of work.
Niki Boon